The present invention relates to the discovery, identification, and characterization of novel human polynucleotides encoding proteins sharing sequence similarity with mammalian glycotransferases. The invention encompasses the described polynucleotides, host cell expression systems, the encoded protein, fusion proteins, polypeptides and peptides, antibodies to the encoded proteins and peptides, and genetically engineered animals that either lack or over express the disclosed sequences, antagonists and agonists of the proteins, and other compounds that modulate the expression or activity of the proteins encoded by the disclosed polynucleotides that can be used for diagnosis, drug screening, clinical trial monitoring and the treatment of physiological disorders.
Transferases covalently modify biological substrates, including protein, as part of degradation, maturation, and secretory pathways within the body. Transferases have thus been associated with, inter alia, development, protein and cellular senescence, and as cancer associated markers.
The present invention relates to the discovery, identification, and characterization of nucleotides that encode novel human proteins, and the corresponding amino acid sequences of these proteins. The novel human proteins (NHPS) described for the first time herein shares structural similarity with animal beta 1,4 N-acetylgalactosamine transferases.
The novel human nucleic acid (cDNA) sequences described herein, encode proteins/open reading frames (ORFs) of 506, 132, 72, 184, 124, 182, 118, 453, 393, 448, 388, 182, 122, 176, 116, 572, 512, and 566 amino acids in length (see SEQ ID NOS: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 34, and 36).
The invention also encompasses agonists and antagonists of the described NHPs, including small molecules, large molecules, mutant NHPs, or portions thereof that compete with native NHPs, NHP peptides, and antibodies, as well as nucleotide sequences that can be used to inhibit the expression of the described NHPs (e.g., antisense and ribozyme molecules, and sequence or regulatory sequence replacement constructs) or to enhance the expression of the described NHPs (e.g., expression constructs that place the described sequence under the control of a strong promoter system), and transgenic animals that express a NHP transgene, or xe2x80x9cknockoutsxe2x80x9d (which can be conditional) that do not express a functional NHP.
Further, the present invention also relates to processes for identifying compounds that modulate, i.e., act as agonists or antagonists, of NHP expression and/or NHP activity that utilize purified preparations of the described NHP and/or NHP product, or cells expressing the same. Such compounds can be used as therapeutic agents for the treatment of any of a wide variety of symptoms associated with biological disorders or imbalances.
The Sequence Listing provides the sequences of the NHP ORFs encoding the described NHP amino acid sequences. SEQ ID NO: 37 describes an ORF with flanking sequences.